$50k in Marketing money - "Head Scratching Continues"

[Toiletcake]

Assume there is $50,000 in marketing money set aside to begin -

How does a startup company generate a buzz about their new venture to get it off the ground?

In other words, its day 1 of operations, the website is fully functional and you and your staff are ready to get your presence out in front of the masses, how is a tactical plan developed? Of course the obvious answers are utilizing all the social media channels (facebook, twitter, Linkedin and affiliate channels etc) but that only goes so far when you are brand new.

Seo and ppc are also standard practice but seo is not factored in this posting b/c I view that as a longer term approach. This is all about the days 1-180 or so.

What did Groupon do in the early days to get people to see their deals and use there sites services?

We know Facebook took the university's first and the buzz followed shortly after.

Has anyone worked for a Fortune 500 company and had a hand in marketing a new startup?

What do the big boys do?

What would you do?

 

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[snowbank]

Assume there is $50,000 in marketing money set aside to begin -

put it in a vault while you study marketing so that you don't blow it

and/or

use it to hire someone who knows how to market

 

[JEdwards]

50k are you just planning on being local or do you want to go national?

If national. You don't have enough..

50k is a blink of the eye..

Think about this.. Groupon has 4200 sales people and lost something like 450 million last year..

 

[Toiletcake]

This project is national and can be scaled to do whatever.

I am fully aware about Groupons budgets and so forth but thats not the point of my post.

Im looking to learn more about the way the marketing is approached "large scale" in order to get in front of the masses.

Im sure there is a recipe and its scales up accordingly as certain thresholds are met.

 

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[JEdwards]

Spend your 50k local.. Build it up. Find investors to finance it to go national.

 

[snowbank]

Im sure there is a recipe

Everyone wants the recipe, but no one wants to cook. The recipe is work.

You're showing up with nothing and asking how to do everything. You're not going to get answers you want with this approach.

 

[JEdwards]

Everyone wants the recipe, but no one wants to cook. The recipe is work.

You're showing up with nothing and asking how to do everything. You're not going to get answers you want with this approach.

That's cold...

 

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[BrucetonGuy]

It really depends on what kind of operation that you have...

I would agree with what others have posted. Start locally or small scale (You said it yourself. Facebook started with 1 university, then 4, etc., etc.,) then build it up and change your strategies accordingly. Set reachable goals and when you reach those, set slightly higher goals. (Start with 10 people getting on your site, then 50, then 100....etc.)

As far as "large scale" marketing goes, if it doesn't work small scale, it's not going to work large scale.

 

[snowbank]

That's cold...

it's the real answer. telling him to 'spend 50k locally' when it sounds like he's trying to learn to market is not good advice. you don't know what he knows, what he's trying to do, what niche he's in, who his competition is, etc... so, telling him to spend 50k locally is not going to be beneficial to him, but it could be detrimental to him. you need substantially more information. blanket advice is what gets people into trouble in the first place because they don't understand "why". he should absolutely not 'spend 50k locally' based on the information provided.

 

[Toiletcake]

Snowbank this video sums up your comments nicely. Keep up the good work!

SNL - Debbie Downer Theme Tune - YouTube

 

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[Likwid24]

I agree with snowbank. You should learn everything you can about marketing if your not going to hire someone to do the job. Look into the most effective ways to get your name or product out there without spending a ton of money. I'm currently reading "Guerrilla Marketing" by Jay Conrad Levinson while I'm preparing to launch my product. I don't have to capital to hire someone right now so I'm going to learn as much as I can in the next 2 months. I suggest you do the same or you might as well throw your 50k in the fireplace.

 

[Toiletcake]

Obviously all bases will be covered before any moves are made, I dont leave anything to chance.

I have been in contact with the appropriate companies in order to learn as much as possible. I was solely interested in some adequate responses from some of the more knowledgeable forum members on the fastlane. Sometimes its nice to acquire information from those who have 0 interest in closing a sale.

 

[mrhahn]

As others have said, you just have to try things out. $50k imo gives you a more than enough to work with. If you can't hire someone, try to compile all the marketing techniques you can think of, from social media to local papers. Try things out in a small scale with a limited budget and make sure to (somehow) track conversions. Keep testing and drop methods that don't give you enough ROI. Once you have your best methods you can allocate more of your budget for them.

 

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[77startup]

I'm the Marketing Director for my company, and from your budget your best bet is to first "get outside" of the building and talk to your target market and see if you can get your first 10 customers. The data you will learn from doing this will greatly increase the ROI of your marketing spend.

As for more specific advise, it's kind of hard. Is your business b2b or b2c? Are you selling a general product as in my case "socks" or a very niche specific product such as "adult tricycles"?

 

[Anon3587x]

Don't spend anything on adwords unless you know exactly what you are doing.

It will eat up your money faster than you can imagine. Adwords can take advantage of you like a slot machine if you are inexperienced.

 

[Giles]

I agree with bateati:

Don't spend anything on adwords unless you know exactly what you are doing.

I good alternative however is Facebook ads. It's basically the same as Google PPC but much more user friendly in setting up an ad. I have 3 ads running on it at the moments and am paying 21 cents per click for highly targeted traffic.

If its the sort of business that can create a good buzz get in touch with local newspapers etc to see if they will find an angle and run a story on it.

 

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[Anon3587x]

I agree with bateati:


I good alternative however is Facebook ads. It's basically the same as Google PPC but much more user friendly in setting up an ad. I have 3 ads running on it at the moments and am paying 21 cents per click for highly targeted traffic.

If its the sort of business that can create a good buzz get in touch with local newspapers etc to see if they will find an angle and run a story on it.

I have not looked into facebook advertising too much. Does it direct traffic to your website or just to your facebook business page?

 

[Steven Williams]

This is what the big boys do and I'm currently about to do this with $200k VC funding.

You should write out each department you'll need to maintain and grow the business.

Then hire specific companies that specialize in that particular area.

I currently run 5 companies all 100% debt free and 100% controlled by my wife and I. I was recently approached by some clients from one of companies about investing in one of my companies that has huge upside potential. My wife and a talked I over and decided to take the investment. And we are structuring the company that way now.

I'm hiring PR debt, marketing dept, tech dept, accounting debt. My current staff will assist with my oversight of each dept.

You can do this with $50k if you pay close attention to the needs of the company.

 

[DeletedUser2]

50K?

Groupon went the CPA route, spending millions to aquire customers. then the money was in the list.

I would drop 5-10K in PPC WITH AN EXPERT RUNNING IT just to get your list of peopel you need to talk to. your customers, and poential customers. focus solely on getting them to convert to paying customers.

otherwise your going to piss it away and go WTF just happened?

do it with either face book or PPC but buy some traffic. hire someone who can drive targeted traffic. and im going to be honest here. its going to be expensive, BUT ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU MONEY. its just to get you to the market, so you can develop your offer. once you have a winning offer, 50K is a nice ramp up. but it will take you 5-10K to figure out what and who, and where your market is.

you basicly did this backwards. ALWAYS start with the market. where are they? what the hell do they want? if your not asking them, and you dont already have a customer, you did it backwards


just my .02 cents
and sno -baller is right.

 

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